Niseko Onsen-kyo — Spring Water Analysis, Temperature and Snowfall
ニセコ温泉郷 · Hokkaido
Niseko Onsen-kyo (ニセコ温泉郷) is a nationally designated onsen town in Hokkaido. We measured how much snow its winters bring, using the same method as for the 3,069 ski areas on this site.
How this place came to be
The Niseko springs are scattered across the flank of the Niseko range, spanning the towns of Niseko and Rankoshi. They did not begin as a resort. They began as a sulphur mine, worked from before the Meiji period; when the railway arrived in 1904 the traffic increased and the baths were developed alongside it.
What makes the area unusual is that the water is different in each part of it. Five districts — Konbu, Yumoto, Goshiki, Niimi and Annupuri — each have their own springs. At Yumoto, hot gas heats a lake into a large steaming pond, and the yellow spheres of sulphur floating on it are considered scientifically notable.
Most visitors know Niseko through Hirafu, in the neighbouring town of Kutchan. This is not that place. It lies inside a quasi-national park, still mostly old inns and pensions, and the Ministry of the Environment's own plan for the area describes it as the slower side of Niseko.
The Shiribetsu river running through the middle of it has been rated the cleanest river in Japan.
Sources: 環境省 ニセコ温泉郷 国民保養温泉地計画書
Snowfall in winter
| Per season | 241 cm |
| Rank | 16 of 77 ranked onsen |
| Within prefecture | 1 of 5 in Hokkaido |
| Against the median of 77 | +123 cm median 118 cm |
| Winter to winter | 149 cm 166–315 cm, leanest to deepest of twelve |
Find a place to stay · Open in maps
"Find a place to stay" searches Rakuten Travel and contains advertising; we may earn a commission on bookings made through it. The snowfall figures and ranking are calculated independently of that.
We do not link to an official site. We have not verified URLs for all 79 towns, and guessing would send you somewhere wrong. They will be added once checked.
More places to look
Just the bath
Day passes for hot springs are sold through Asoview. Japanese only.
The list covers the whole prefecture — it cannot be narrowed to this town.
Hot springs nearby, as analysed
2 hot spring sources with published analyses lie within 3 km of the centre of this onsen town, nearest first.
| Source | Distance | Temperature | pH | Type | Analysed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 曽我町営芙蓉荘 | 0.2 km | 33.4℃ lukewarm | 6.7 neutral | — | — |
| 曽我 | 0.4 km | 35.6℃ warm | 7.5 mildly alkaline | — | — |
These are analyses of hot spring sources, not a list of baths you can visit. They date from 1910 to 2005, many from decades ago, so today’s temperature and chemistry may differ. Names are as recorded in Japanese. Temperature and pH bands follow Japan’s standard for analysing hot springs.
Source: processed from the hot spring analysis data in the Geothermal Information Database (GRES-DB), Geological Survey of Japan, AIST
Worth seeing nearby
Places within 20 km of this onsen town, chosen from those most read about on Wikipedia, favouring places with an English Wikipedia article, and listed nearest first.
| Place | Type | Distance |
|---|---|---|
| Arishima Takeo Memorial Museum有島記念館 | Museum | 1.5 km |
| Nisekoan Nupuriニセコアンヌプリ | Mountain | 7.7 km |
| Mount Yōtei羊蹄山 | Mountain | 10.5 km |
| Shinsen-numa神仙沼 | Nature | 13.1 km |
| Niseko-Shakotan-Otaru Kaigan Quasi-National Parkニセコ積丹小樽海岸国定公園 | Nature | 14.3 km |
| Fukidashi Parkふきだし公園 | Park | 16.1 km |
Based on the Japanese Wikipedia lists of sights in each prefecture, as compiled in travel-log-data (CC BY-SA 4.0). English names from Wikidata (CC0). The content of this section is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Ski areas nearby
Up to five within 40 km, straight-line, nearest first. Quality rank is out of the 397 Japanese ski areas.
| Ski area | Distance | Quality rank |
|---|---|---|
| Niseko Grand Hirafu | 6 km | 38 of 397 |
| Niseko Moiwa Ski Resort | 7 km | 32 of 397 |
| Asahigaoka Ski Resort | 11 km | 80 of 397 |
| Iwanai Resort | 20 km | 28 of 397 |
| Rusutsu Resort | 21 km | 131 of 397 |
These snowfall figures are estimates
The snowfall shown here is an estimate produced by a weather model, not a record of what actually fell.
We compared it against 63 Japan Meteorological Agency weather stations to see how far off it is. On average it comes to about six tenths of the real figure — it runs low. And it runs low by different amounts in different places: some read barely a third of what was measured, others match almost exactly. Mountains tend to read lowest.
We tried scaling everything up by a fixed amount to correct for it. It barely helped, because the error differs from place to place.
So treat these numbers as a guide to roughly where somewhere sits, not a precise figure. There is no meaning in the gap between first and second, or between 30th and 35th. Large differences between regions are real and can be read as they are.
We considered correcting the figures against the observations. But this ranking covers 3,069 ski areas across ten countries, and only Japan can be checked against weather stations. Correcting Japan alone would lift Japanese resorts above the Alps and North America with nothing behind it. Every place here is measured the same way instead.
Where a nearby weather station can be used, we print what it actually recorded on that ski area's own page.